From NOAA news: NOAA Scientist Finds Clue to Predicting Solar Flares
Forecasters at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
For decades, experts have searched for signs in the sun that could lead to more accurate forecasts of solar flares — powerful blasts of energy that can supercharge Earth’s upper atmosphere and disrupt satellites and the land-based technologies on which modern societies depend. Now a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and her colleagues have found a technique for predicting solar flares two to three days in advance with unprecedented accuracy.
The long-sought clue to prediction lies in changes in twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun in the days leading up to a flare, according to the authors. The findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters next month.
“For the first time, we can tell two to three days in advance when and where a solar flare will occur and how large it will be,” said lead author Alysha Reinard, a solar physicist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, a partnership between NOAA and the University of Colorado.
Twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun erupt into a large solar flare, as shown above.
High resolution (Credit: NSF)
The new technique is already twice as accurate as current methods, according to the authors, and that number is expected to improve as they refine their work over the next few years. With this technique, reliable watches and warnings should be possible before the next solar sunspot maximum, predicted to occur in 2013. Currently, forecasters see complex sunspot regions and issue alerts that a large flare may erupt, but the when-and-where eludes them.
Solar flares are sudden bursts of energy and light from sunspots’ magnetic fields. During a flare, photons travel at the speed of light in all directions through space, arriving at Earth’s upper atmosphere—93 million miles from the sun—in just eight minutes.
Almost instantly the photons can affect the high-orbiting satellites of the Global Positioning System, or GPS, creating timing delays and skewing positioning signals by as much as half a football field, risking high-precision agriculture, oil drilling, military and airline operations, financial transactions, navigation, disaster warnings, and other critical functions relying on GPS accuracy.
“Two or three days lead time can make the difference between safeguarding the advanced technologies we depend on every day for our livelihood and security, and the catastrophic loss of these capabilities and trillions of dollars in disrupted commerce,” said Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Reinard and NOAA intern Justin Henthorn of Ohio University pored over detailed maps of more than 1,000 sunspot groups, called active regions. The maps were constructed from solar sound-wave data from the National Science Foundation’s Global Oscillation Network Group.
Reinard and Henthorn found the same pattern in region after region: magnetic twisting that tightened to the breaking point, burst into a large flare, and vanished. They established that the pattern could be used as a reliable tool for predicting a solar flare.
“These recurring motions of the magnetic field, playing out unseen beneath the solar surface, are the clue we’ve needed to know that a large flare is coming—and when,” said Reinard.
Rudi Komm and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory contributed to the research.
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Note to Editors: The paper has been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters in February: “Evidence that temporal changes in solar subsurface helicity precede active region flaring,” by Alysha Reinard, Justin Henthorn, Rudi Komm, and Frank Hill.
TIM CLARK (19:01:54) :
are perfectionary obsessive-compulsive
I do have a streak of that, but you are right, it is rather pointless. One problem is that those folks try to hijack every thread with their nonsense. I try to make them stay over here on this dead thread …
Sometimes they escape, to the detriment of WUWT. But perhaps it is time to them wither on the vine.
Let me be clear, I concur that a dead thread is the place for this. But don’t wear yourself out. It’s been boring for you but the sun will do something interesting soon, and NASA will say it’s unprecedented. I know plant physiology, but the sun is too bright for me.
The following quote from Leif,
“The Coriolis force is not an effect of Einstein’s special or general relativity, but can be said to be an effect of Galilean relativity in the sense that a rotating frame of reference is not inertial, but we generally reserve the word ‘relativistic’ for the Einsteinian sort…”
left me drooling in my philosophical mind. It was mind candy. Better than chocolate and red wine. It made me want to read again Einstein’s many biographies as they relate to his thought experiments and the “conversations” he must have had with Newton and Galileo, among others, as he sought to understand the physical cosmos.
I don’t know Leif and have not read his biography (you MUST write one). But your unique, purely logical mind leaves me breathless. And your debate style, though others may disagree, is devoid of meanness or arrogance. It is purely logical. Reminds me of the family friend who once opened a hospital door for my grandma and I, Walter Brennen, who said from the script, “No brag, just fact.” I can easily hear you say such a thing.
TIM CLARK (19:21:34) :
but the sun will do something interesting soon, and NASA will say it’s unprecedented.
Yeah, and we need to keep them honest. To counter their hyped PRs, where scientists are stumped, shocked, shaking their heads, gnashing teeth, and generally completely mystified.
Pamela Gray (19:26:48) :
the “conversations” he must have had with Newton and Galileo, among others, as he sought to understand the physical cosmos.
There is a delightful book by Harald Fritzsch ISBN 0-231-11821-X ‘The curvature of spacetime (Newton, Einstein, and Gravitation) 2002. Fritzsch explains relativity and other concepts of modern physics through an imaginary conversation between Newton, Einstein, and a fictitious contemporary particle physicist called Haller. It lets Haller teach Einstein and Newton [and us] the current status, experimental and theoretical, of modern physics, in much the same way Galileo did in his time with his ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’.
Highly recommended [paperback].
Thanks Leif. Must get that book. Just finished reading Candice Pert’s “Molecules of Emotion”, again, which goes off on a tangent in the end but nonetheless is an excellent read. It is the third time I have read my copy. Good books are worth reading many times.
Leif Svalgaard (15:59:03) :
“It is enough that resitivity is small enough not to have any effect on the time/length scales of interest.”
Thanks, so we may conclude that quoting dB/dt =0, either here, Parker’s book and elsewhere, is not correct.
Thus, the solar wind is, if you wish ‘frozen-in’ but not entirely.
James F. Evans (14:26:51) :
“Your demonstration that “frozen in” magnetic fields is a false concept, lays it out in impeccable reasoning and mathematical logic.”
I wouldn’t argue with that (not for the moment), but do not assume I am converted to the EU views either.
In reflection, I stand on my prior comment (18:18:53).
Dr. Svalgaard (19:14:23) wrote : “One problem is that those folks try to hijack every thread with their nonsense.”
Title of the post: New tool for solar flare prediction
The mechanism or process of a solar flare is relevant to the post.
So-called “magnetic reconnection” (really Electric Double Layers) was first conceived in 1946 as an explanation for what triggers a solar flare.
It has also been proposed that explosive Electric Double Layers are the physical explanation for solar flares (Alfven and Carlquist, 1967).
See scientific paper: Title: The Alfven-Carlquist double-layer theory of solar flares
Authors: Hasan, S. S. & Ter Haar, D.
Journal: Astrophysics and Space Science, vol. 56, no. 1, June 1978
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1978Ap%26SS..56…89H/0000089.000.html
Given the theoretical difficulties of so-called “magnetic reconnection” as outlined in the above disussion thread and the in situ observation & measurement support for the presence of astrophysical Electric Double Layers, it is reasonable to discuss Electric Double Layers as the actual physical process & explanation in all situations where “magnetic reconnection” is alleged to occur.
Challenging a supposed mechanism for solar flares by presenting scientific papers and analyzing the papers and comparing those papers to other conflicting scientifc papers and discussing known scientific principles is standard scientific practice.
Putting forth scientific evidence and argument for what phyiscal process causes a solar flare is appropriate to the instant post.
Quote Leif Svalgaard (19:14:23) :
“One problem is that those folks try to hijack every thread with their nonsense. I try to make them stay over here on this dead thread …”
Thanks, Leif, for explaining that your intentions are “to make them (critics of the Standard Solar Model) stay over here on this dead thread …”
You are excellent at your trade!
Do you have a committee to assist you?
Or are you that clever at avoiding experimental facts on your own?
I can appreciate the fear in high places that Climate-gate may evolve into NASA-gate or even NAS-gate.
If you ever decide to change professions, I again recommend that you meditate on the puzzle that the 2000 NASA report offered you:
“Why the Sun’s magnetic field behaves in this way is a puzzle, but the answer must lie deep within the Sun”.
The Sun’s deep-seated magnetic field is the source of all solar flares, including those that the TRACE satellite recorded coming from Active Region AR 9143 on 28 August 2000: http://tinyurl.com/y9sobnu
Best wishes,
Oliver K. Manuel
G.Varros:
One way to do your own little visual experiment is to take a nice flexible mouse cord and simply twist it with your two hands
Wonderful simplicity!, and if powered it is the same but scaled phenomenon.
by a lot of elbow grease in solving differential equations of some kind or another
What if things are much more simple?. It seems that the concept of a plasma/electric universe will simplify things though it will mean that some kids will lose their favorite toys.
Oliver K. Manuel (04:30:41) : It looks like your view of the sun is complementary with that of a plasma sun, a kind of choke with magnetite in it.
Not sure why I came back to this thread, the electric universe makes me puke rubber biscuits.
Dr. Manuel:
At least we know where L.S. stands and have a potentially clearer picture of his motives. (I suspect, although, I can’t prove, that while he complains about scientists saying “stuff” for funding or increased funding, Dr. Svalgaard’s “job” is to protect the status quo’s funding stream by attacking any alternative ideas or views that could drain off funding from established areas of research into alternative ideas, which if scientifically fruitful, could lead to a complete damming up and cut-off of funding from failed status quo areas and divert the funding into new areas of research. Obviously, there are powerful interests who don’t want to see something like that happen.)
Dr. Manuel :“Why the Sun’s magnetic field behaves in this way is a puzzle, but the answer must lie deep within the Sun”.
Dr. Manuel : “The Sun’s deep-seated magnetic field is the source of all solar flares, including those that the TRACE satellite recorded coming from Active Region…”
Yes, I have viewed solar images where I had a perception of some possibly rigid structures splitting apart and plasma flowing up and out in a loop and then back down into either the same crack (if my memory serves me) or into another nearby crack (I’d be happy to be corrrected on my memory).
What is the meaning of this perception? I can not tell (although, I’m open to explore the possibilities).
Dr. Manuel, how do you reconcile the image where a perception of rigid stuctures is recorded with the solar image that is analogous to a “pebble thrown in a still pond” with ripples moving out from a center point at tremendous velocity (like tidal waves across the ocean from the epicenter of an earthquake)?
The two contrasting images need to be reconciled. Or are they actually contrasting at all?
How could the two images be complimentary?
But rigid structures seem incompatible with flowing “ripples” hundreds (thousands?) of kilometers high.
How are both visible on the surface of the Sun? Or do physical conditions change, so that one set of physical conditions are present which show the perceptibly rigid structures and plasma loops at one time, and at another time a set of physical conditions which allow ripples to form like a “pebble thrown in a still pond”?
Is it possible that there is a “sea change” on the Sun’s surface that allows for both sets of physical conditions at different times?
And, if so, what causes the “sea change” on the Sun’s surface?
How would a “sea change” conflict with the Standard Solar Model?
Or can they both happen in similar conditions and what makes this possible?
And, if so, how would this conflict with the Standard Solar Model, if at all?
But I also wonder what is the meaning of the upper corona being upward of two million degrees Celsius and the surface as low as 4500 degrees Celsius.
Something seems to be going on up in the corona, too.
There are anomolous observations & measurements of the Sun and solar environment which contradict the Standard Solar Model.
Is it reasonable to ask questions and seek answers about the anomolous observations & measurements?
Cheers
G. Varros (11:31:48) : “Not sure why I came back to this thread, the electric universe makes me puke rubber biscuits.”
You aren’t eating very healthy, are you?
REPLY: and with that this thread is closed…I’m tired of all the pathetic bickering going on here – Anthony